I get by with a lot of help from my friends

Category Archives: Makeover

I’ve been thinking about doing a cuckoo clock project since I saw a similar one in a magazine. Lucky for me… my mom and Aunt Noreen were looking for a good home for their old cuckoo clocks, and thanks to Pinterest, I found some instructions and inspiration to get me started.

Before

During

I couldn’t find my saw horses, so I used Casey’s pool.

After

I plan to hang them in the sunroom. I’ve been looking for things that won’t fade for that room.

I had no intention of updating the guest bedroom until next summer. However, my parents were getting rid of an upholstered headboard, so I snapped it up. It was my dream to refinish an old wooden headboard in a funky color, but beggars can’t be choosers. Then while holiday shopping online I came across a sale on a funky comforter with all of the right colors, so I snapped it up.

Before

Here’s a photo before my Dad installed Ikea’s Maskros Pendant Lamp that I found on craigslist.

Don’t mind the mess.

During

“New” Headboard

After

Here’s the bedroom set I bought spur of the moment thinking the busy pattern and bright colors would make up for the lack of wall hangings and wall color. Now I’m not so sure, but it is a lot more cheerier.

Excuse the box in the foreground.

It’s a little busy, and not the room of my dreams, but it’s better than blah.

I’ve been stuck in a style rut, but luckily one of my coworkers turned me on to Stitch Fix. For those of you who don’t know, Stitch Fix is a fun online company that assigns you a personal stylist who chooses fashionable items that suit your needs. On the website you provide your stylist with your sizes and complete a simple style questionnaire. You have the option of writing her a note including your requests, and you can even provide her with the link to your online media like your Pinterest page. There is a 20 dollar style fee, but if you choose to buy any of the items, the fee goes towards your purchase. You have 3 days to decide which days items you want to keep and which items that you want to return in a prepaid envelope. It’s really easy and the anticipation of the unknown makes it so much fun.

My first box just arrived from Stitch Fix and I couldn’t be happier. It came with a style guide to help to help me mix and match the pieces.

My bundle of joy

1. Kathy Striped Fit & Flare Dress

This is such a cute dress and I think it is very flattering. I can dress it up or down and wear it season to season.

Verdict: KEEP

2. Octavia Tina Checkered Infinity Scarf

I would have not have picked this out, but I really like it. It’s so soft and unlike anything that I have. (Please excuse my pasty legs.)

Verdict: KEEP

3. 41 Hawthorn Colorblock Lizzy Striped Sweater

This sweater reminded me of other shirts and sweaters that I own, but once I had it on I knew I had to keep it. It’s soft and comfortable. I like that the stripes on the body are different from the stripes on the arms. It’s a nice detail.

Verdict: KEEP

4. Market and Spruce Clove Twist Back Cardigan

I was not crazy about this cardigan when I opened the box. It was expensive for something that’s not very flattering and aside from the color, a bit boring. One plus is that it doesn’t attract dog hair.

Verdict: KEEP (Only because if you keep all 5 items, you get 25% off.)

5. Pixley Sofia Hammered Square Collar Necklace

I liked this necklace so much that I wore it right after I opened the box. It can dress up any outfit.

(Sorry for the bathroom photo. It’s my only room that has good light at night.)

Verdict: KEEP

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed doing Stitch Fix. It was fun to start thinking about my style and it got me moving in a better direction. The anticipation of getting my box in the mail was almost as fun as opening the box and playing dress up. My stylist, Monica, really got me. I would definitely do it again. I wish they’d offer a teacher discount.

If you decide to try it, please click on this link. Stitch Fix will give me a referral credit.

This winter I decided my living room needed a touch of color. I had neutral walls, neutral couches, neutral rugs and even a neutral dog. Everything was either yellow, beige or yellowish-beige. It felt very blah inside the house and it was very blah outside the house. Depressing! I even went a little stir crazy during one storm and started painting blue patches on the walls just to test out some colors that I saw on Pintrest. Even the pillow covers I bought from Etsy weren’t doing me any favors. It was time for a change. (You might recognize the pillows from my sunroom. They look great in there.)

Before

My blah living room

That mess in the guest room is from a guest, not me. 🙂

Love this table.. but it’s too big. Who can I blame this mess on?

I realized part of the reason that my living room was lacking luster was due to the lack of light. The only light is from a northwest facing window. A window that I had covered with heavy curtains from my old condo. While exploring the paint chips at O’Connor Hardware, I found a little diagram explaining that dark rooms should have warm colors. At that moment blue was out and yellow was in. I searched pintrest for yellows that would be good for West facing rooms. I tried Funky Yellow first. Big Mistake. Then I met with the Benjamin Moore decorator for free who suggested 2 yellows and tried them both. Unfortunately, you can no longer get the sample size jars of pain. (The company who used to make the sample size pots went out of business.) I decided on a color called Straw.

Meanwhile…. I was inspired by the condo that my friend just bought. Here is his living room.

Inspiration

Inspiration…the condo my friend just bought

During

From right to left: BM funky yellow, BM straw, BM ?

Then I chose a day to paint. It was over 90 degrees and humid that day, but it didn’t stop me. I donned an old bikini and got started. Good thing my west facing window doesn’t face any neighbors.

The laundry room was the one room that I never planned to touch. However, since the flood destroyed the carpet, I figured I might have a little fun in there. Maybe I would have one of those cute laundry rooms like the ones you see on Pinterest. Painting would be easy since I didn’t have to worry about destroying the rug. As you can see by my photos, I had nothing to lose.

Before

Before

I knew that I had to do something about the dated paneling. I painted the wall the same grey that I did in the sunroom, BM Revere Pewter. However, I made a rookie mistake. I forgot to prime the wood walls before I painted them. Oops. Too late now.

I originally wanted to do tile on the floor using the insurance money from the flood. However, my Dad talked me out of it. He gently made me realize that since you could never see the floor in my laundry room because of all the laundry scattered about…it really didn’t matter. He found some neutral, high quality stick-on tile (Is that an oxymoron?) at you guessed it…Habitat for Humanity Restore . We painted the floor with paint left over from other projects. He laid the tile and I ran over them with my rolling pin. Using a red rolling pin was a mistake. It left some marks, but they were removed easily.

Like an elf making cookies

After

I was inspired by a photo on Pinterest (They always have the cutest laundry room photos.) and chose a coral color for the cabinet. This time I remembered the primer. I did a few coats and then bought some faux glass handles at Home Goods. It was a world of difference. I even purchased a cute basket for the top to hide all of my ugly bottles.

This is actually my laundry room. Not a photo from Pinterest.

My favorite home decorating book suggested that new homeowners hang found art instead of displaying impersonal art found at discount stores or blowing their budget on fine art. I definitely wasn’t going to invest in real art for my laundry room. I found these frames at a thrift store (I wish I took a before picture of the frames and their pansy pictures) and used two pages from a cute dog calendar from last year. Voila! Found art!

We still have to lay the rest of the tile, paint the baseboards and install new windows, but here’s how it looks now…

Laundry Room Makeover…. Coming Soon

With my new sunroom half finished, I was gaining more confidence. I’ve been eyeing brightly colored chairs on pinterest and HGTV magazine. I purchased these chairs at the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Billerica last fall hoping to so something cool with them. I’m lucky that that store is so close to my house.

Chairs Before

I was thinking about getting some industrial looking chairs too. However, the only somewhat reasonable priced ones I could find were on overstock.com. In the comment section, one lady wrote, “Do not purchase if you wear over a size 12 in pants.” Between the price and her comment, I realized that these chairs might not be the best “fit” for me. Luckily my Mom and I found 2 chairs at the Habitat Store. They were very sturdy and paintable. I forgot to do a before picture, but you can kind of see one in this photo of my mother and Casey. You can also see the huge, clutter collecting hall tree that I had in the sunroom to greet my guests. That’s gone now too. Thanks to craigslist.

The chair on the left is one of the ones we painted.

I decided to paint the chairs one sunny day. My Dad couldn’t resist a spray paint project, so he joined in the fun. I used about 2 cans per chair. I wish I had done another couple of coats, but they came out well.

A family that paints together stays together.

I had some fade resistant fabric that I picked up at Joanne’s and my mom put it on with a staple gun. Here’s the end result. The other 2 chairs were camera shy, but these two were willing to pose.